


reciprocity

by bubonickitten



Series: not alone [2]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: (jon's adhd isn't explicitly stated as such but i write him that way., (platonic fluff), (some unidentified time after MAG 146 basically), Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Board Games, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Gen, Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist Has ADHD, Panic Attacks, Season/Series 04, Trauma, and also tea, daisy & jon's friendship means everything to me ok, daisy gets to engage in a little light arson. as a treat, daisy has a sweet tooth shh don't tell anyone, jon can't have shit in these archives, just two friends working through the mortifying ordeal of being known, more comfort than hurt though i think, that man has his rejection sensitive dysphoria triggered 24/7 i stg.), through playful ribbing and a side of board games
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-21
Updated: 2020-05-21
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:47:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24297577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bubonickitten/pseuds/bubonickitten
Summary: Sometimes, listening to the quiet just doesn't work.Jon and Daisy drown out the noise with tea, board games, and some heart-to-heart conversation.
Relationships: Jonathan Sims & Alice "Daisy" Tonner
Series: not alone [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1754110
Comments: 39
Kudos: 226





	reciprocity

**Author's Note:**

> Writing [this one](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24225976) put me in the mood for more Jon & Daisy friendship, so I decided to write a fic to expand on [this silly headcanon](https://bubonickitten.tumblr.com/post/618438939378892800/silly-tma-headcanon) I had. 
> 
> CW: brief descriptions of claustrophobia; panic attacks; discussions of canon-typical trauma; brief psychological self-harm (i.e. punishing oneself by purposely exposing oneself to a triggering situation).

The storage room is claustrophobic: cramped, cluttered, and dark. Pitch dark, actually – there is no gap between the door and the floor, nothing to let the light from the hallway filter through.

Shelving units line the walls, sagging under the weight of boxes and papers. Daisy has managed to squeeze herself into a tight space between the shelving and a wall, knees hugged tight to her chest, wrapped tightly in a heavy blanket from the cot in the corner. A precarious column of boxes sits in front of her, crowding her and half hiding her from view should anyone come in. She’s become rather gaunt lately – a combination of eight months in the Buried and her failing appetite – and even through the blanket, she can feel her vertebrae pressing up against the cinderblock. She anticipates bruises.

All of this is fine.

Until the door creaks open and a thin streak of light shoots across the floor. Daisy hisses and presses the heels of her palms into her eyes, leaning into the pressure.

“Daisy?”

Jon’s voice, soft and tentative. It reminds Daisy of the tone one might use when approaching a wounded animal, or perhaps to avoid provoking a bear after unwittingly stumbling into its path. 

_Prey or predator._ She isn’t sure which she hates more. 

“Did you _Know_ I was here, Jon?” She grits her teeth against the snarl climbing up her throat, but doesn’t bother to keep the edge out of her voice.

“I… yes,” he admits, after an uneasy pause. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to – to Know, it just… it came to me.”

“It’s fine,” she says, voice clipped and teeth clenched so tightly her jaw aches under the tension.

“Are you –” Jon stops himself short of asking a question. “I would like to know how you’re feeling,” he says instead, reframing the sentence. He speaks each word carefully, deliberately; he’s trying to keep the compulsion from creeping into his voice, Daisy knows. 

_“Fine,”_ she repeats, unable to stop the hint of a growl underlying her tone this time. “And stop talking to me like I’m a frightened rabbit, or – or a _rabid dog_.”

Jon is quiet for a few moments. When he speaks again, he does take on a more conversational tone: still calm, but without that timid tinge to it.

“Daisy, I’m going to turn on the light,” he warns. “You should close your eyes if you don’t want to get blinded.”

Daisy hears the flip of the light switch, followed by Jon’s footsteps crossing the room. She pulls her hands away from her face but keeps her eyes closed, letting them adjust to the sudden influx of light. She doesn’t open them until she hears Jon stop, followed by the rustle of clothing as he lowers himself to the floor. Squinting against the light, she sees that he’s sat a few feet away on a diagonal from her, placing himself within her line of sight while still giving her space.

He settles back on his haunches, leans back against the shelving unit, and draws his knees to his chest, an unconscious mirroring of Daisy’s posture. When he looks in her direction, he doesn’t actually meet her eye, instead staring at the wall just over her head. He’s been self-conscious lately about eye contact, she knows, ever since he listened to the tape of his victim: _He’s all eyes. He’s **all** eyes._

Even so, Daisy still feels exposed. Vulnerable. Known. _Seen –_

“What?” she snaps. She’s far too tense right now to care how harsh she sounds.

It’s fine; they both have a tendency to lash out when they feel cornered. They’re working on it, but in the meantime, they’ve reassured each other that when it _does_ happen, it’s not personal. They’ve been through this song and dance many, many times – which is probably why, when Jon replies, he sounds utterly unfazed.

“You already know what I want to ask.”

“Did you rummage around in my mind, then?” It comes off as caustic and accusing, and this time she feels herself wince – yes, there’s the guilt. _That_ was a low blow, and she knows it.

After a moment of uncomfortable silence, she chances a glance at him. There _is_ the slightest trace of hurt in his eyes, but otherwise, he keeps his expression neutral.

“No,” he says simply. She can tell he’s trying to keep the conversation from becoming about him, from turning into Daisy comforting _him_ rather than the other way around. Which also means she's not getting out of this easily. “I just recognize self-harm when I see it.”

“I am _not_ –”

“You’ve hidden yourself away alone in a cramped space, in the dark, and you’re smothering yourself with the heaviest blanket you could find,” Jon interrupts. Then, more gently: “I don’t have to read your mind to know what you’re trying to –”

“Leave. Me. _Alone_.” She nearly chokes on the last word, hating herself for how weak it makes her sound. Tearful and timid, like easy prey. 

“No,” Jon says resolutely.

Daisy groans. On the whole, Jon tends towards doubt and indecision, but he can be _stubborn_ when he wants to, and she recognizes this tone of his. She has one just like it, though she uses it more often than he does. It exudes an attitude of _no, **you** move_ – and it’s infuriating to be on the receiving end of it.

“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to, but I’m not just going to leave you here to torture yourself.”

With that, he looks away, giving her back her privacy, and lets the silence settle between them. _Fine_ , Daisy thinks. Jon might be stubborn, but she matches him in that regard. Moreover, she has the advantage of patience. She can sit with silence a lot longer than he can, and she determines to wait him out.

As expected, it only takes a few minutes before he looks down and focuses his attention on his hands, flexing his burned hand, rubbing his fingers together on the other, tapping them against his knee. Daisy knows by now that Jonathan Sims can’t sit still even when his life depends on it. After he was abducted by the Circus, she saw the bruising from the ropes they bound him with. It wasn’t unexpected, but it still seemed more extensive than it should have been, as if he’d struggled against the restraints the entire month they had him. Even in the Buried, he’d never stopped squirming.

Usually, his fidgeting doesn’t bother her. Right now, though, it’s grating on her nerves, and she can tell that Jon is in this for the long haul. She _cannot_ handle hours of this.

Daisy heaves the loudest, most exasperated sigh she can muster, and Jon – damn him – _smirks._ It’s a private little thing, probably unconscious – a nearly imperceptible upturn at the corner of his mouth, just the faintest hint of self-satisfaction that for once he’s managed to outlast her in one of these conversational stalemates – and then it’s gone.

It still takes some time for her to compose a sentence, but when she does, the words tumble out in a rush.

“In the coffin, I couldn’t hear the blood.”

“I know,” Jon says softly, after a moment's pause. Then: “But I don’t think forcing yourself to relive the Buried is going to drown it out.”

Daisy opens her mouth – whether to agree or to make a snide remark, she isn’t entirely sure – but no sound comes out. She can hear her own heart thundering in her chest, can feel the throb of her pulse in her throat. Suddenly, she is all too aware of the blood coursing through her veins – and through Jon’s.

She jams her fingers in her ears, but it only amplifies the sound of her heartbeat; she leans back as far as she can, chasing the ache of the wall against her spine, trying to ground herself in the present. That distant but ever-present roar is creeping up on her, though, building in volume, commanding her to seek, to chase, to hunt, to sink her teeth into the prey and let its fear revitalize her.

The Archivist is _right there_ , the blood tells her, vulnerable and exposed. For too long now, he has delayed the death that dogs his steps. She allowed him to escape, and his continued existence an unforgivable insult to the Hunt. All she needs to do is finish what she started so long ago, grant him the end he knows he deserves, and then she can be _whole_ again –

“I can’t – I can’t handle the quiet right now,” she blurts out, slamming her hands onto the hard floor. Her voice cuts through the silence, sharp and abrupt, reminding her all too much of the bark of a wild dog. She gives Jon a pleading look, and she doesn’t care how helpless she sounds right then; he’s already seen her like this, in the coffin and so many times since. “I – I need a distraction.”

“Come on, then,” Jon says, standing and extending his hand. “I’ll pull out the board games. I already made tea.” 

As he pulls her to her feet, Daisy starts to speak, but Jon heads her off. 

“ _Yes_ , I made yours extra sweet,” he says, rolling his eyes. It’s only faux annoyance, though – there’s fondness in his little half-smile, and he gives her hand a light squeeze.

Daisy tightens her grip in response before loosening and letting go. Jon lets her hand drop without comment.

Over the months, they’ve both become adept at offering different varieties of reassurance, while still giving each other the space to withdraw when necessary. Jon has admitted to her before that he’s always had difficulty reading people, and it’s only gotten worse since working in the Archives. His long bout of paranoia demolished his ability to trust in his own judgments of others, and his constant hand-wringing about his own humanity doesn’t help matters. Lately, he seems to spend every interaction nearly tripping over himself trying to read people’s cues and body language and speech patterns, frantic in his attempts to avoid hurting anyone and constantly dreading the rejection he has come to expect.

It’s hypervigilance, plain and simple. When it’s just him and Daisy, though, it’s… different. It comes more from a place of mutual understanding, of shared experience. They both know what they’re capable of; they both know that they are things to be feared. With Daisy, Jon can retreat without flinching away and tolerate disengagement without curling in on himself. With Jon, Daisy can let her guard down and trust that he will not patronize her with pity, will not judge her for her moments of weakness. They see each other for what they are. It’s a simple thing, but it makes them both feel just a little bit more human all the same.

Jon pauses at the threshold, glancing back to make sure she’s following. With a sigh, Daisy steps out of that suffocating room and into the hallway, shutting the door behind her.

Even she has to admit that sometimes, it’s nice to be seen.

* * *

A short time later, they’re cloistered away in Jon’s office with two mugs of tea and a stack of battered old board games and decks of cards. Jon had insisted that Daisy choose, so she kneels on the floor and sifts through them.

“How about Uno?”

“Hmm. We can, but you seem a little wound up right now, and Uno can be… intense.”

“Fair,” Daisy says after a moment of consideration. “I did get competitive last time.”

She doesn’t take offense. When they first started spending time together after the Buried, they had promised to be honest with one another. They both had trouble trusting others; promising one another to be explicit about their thoughts and feelings removed that extra roadblock of constantly questioning the other’s sincerity. Mostly, though, they were both deeply terrified of their own potential, and blunt honesty was the best way they knew to keep each other in check.

Daisy tosses a few more boxes aside before settling on another. “What about Clue? You’re all about solving mysteries.”

Jon visibly flinches at that.

“Did I touch a nerve?” Daisy asks, keeping her voice as neutral as she can. Jon is always primed for rejection these days; all it takes is a hint of disapproval, and he’ll start apologizing for _feeling_ things and setting boundaries.

“It’s fine.” Jon waves her off, but she gives him a pointed look until he relents. "Just - something Elias said to me once. 'You never could tolerate an unsolved mystery.' He wasn't _wrong_ , but... well..." He trails off and shrugs. 

"Got it," Daisy says, making a mental note to avoid that particular subject. "So, Clue?"

He bites his bottom lip, considering. “Unsure. With my luck, the weapon will end up being the lead pipe, and I don’t expect I’d handle that particularly well.”

He chuckles, but she can detect the seriousness beneath it. Daisy remembers the crime scene. Jurgen Leitner had been bludgeoned so thoroughly that his corpse was unrecognizable, and the blood spatter had traveled so far that Jon was stumbling across overlooked droplets of blood in his office for weeks after he returned. Daisy was desensitized to that sort of thing, but that was likely the first time Jon had seen anything like it. He’s seen worse since then, no doubt, but sometimes it's the firsts that have the most lingering impact. 

Daisy holds up another box. “Trivial Pursuit?” 

Jon seems to perk up at that. The bright spark in his eyes is reminiscent of a child unwrapping a present, and Daisy flashes a knowing smile. “I take that as a yes?” 

“I… I like trivia games, alright?” he says, a little defensively. “When I was in uni, I used to go to the pub with Georgie on trivia nights –” He cuts himself off, a pained expression dawning on his face. Georgie is always a sore subject, Daisy knows. He has to take a long moment to compose himself before continuing. “She, uh, used to tease me for taking it so seriously. Apparently I can be a bit competitive with it, and – what?”

Jon stops when he hears Daisy's snickering, and he looks so _affronted_ that it only makes her laugh harder. “Nothing, nothing. That just sounds very… _you_.”

“What’s _that_ supposed to mean?”

“Sims, you’re the biggest nerd I know. More than Basira, even.”

He huffs. “We can play something else –”

“No, I think I want to see what you look like when you get competitive,” Daisy says, already unfolding the board on the floor between them and setting up the stacks of cards. “Youngest goes first,” she says, tossing the dice to him.

Jon still seems a bit petulant about the ribbing, but she knows it’s just a mask he puts on sometimes, whenever he feels a bit too _seen._ They’ve spoken a lot about the things they can tease each other about and the things they can’t. Sometimes it’s inconsistent – something can be fair game one day, and the next it’s salt in an open wound – but they try. Jon told her that it just makes him feel more alienated when people walk on eggshells around him. Daisy’s light teasing makes him feel included – like she’s treating him as she would treat anyone else she’s friendly with. He feels safe with her. And that makes her feel safe, too, being trusted with his emotions like that - safe to reciprocate that trust, yes, but also safe to believe that she _can_ be trusted, that she does not have to be a monster. She hopes it does the same for him. She thinks it does, at least some of the time. 

Also, Daisy has found that Jon is actually pretty transparent, once you hang around him long enough. And right now, she can tell he’s inordinately pleased. If he’s trying not to seem too enthusiastic when he rolls the dice, he’s failing magnificently.

“Purple space. That’s… Art and Literature.”

“Right,” Daisy says, picking up a card. “Question is… ‘How many sonnets did Shakespeare write?’”

“One hundred and fifty-four," Jon declares, not missing a beat. 

Daisy raises an eyebrow. “Didn’t even have to think about that one, did you?”

“I majored in English,” Jon mumbles, sounding a bit embarrassed. “And I already told you, I explored AmDram in uni for a stretch. Did some Shakespeare.”

“Hm. You’ll have to show me your Hamlet one of these days.” Her voice drops to a lower register as she mimics him: “‘To be, or not to be -’”

“Absolutely not.” 

“You’re no fun.” Daisy rolls her eyes in mock annoyance and throws the dice. "Looks like… Sports and Leisure for me.” 

Jon dutifully picks up a card and begins to read, modulating his voice the way he does when he’s concentrating on not letting the compulsion slip through. “‘What are the three positions in roller derby?’”

“Jammer, blocker, and pivot,” Daisy recites automatically, counting off on her fingers.

“Didn’t need to think about that one, did you?” Jon says, mimicking Daisy’s earlier tone.

“Is it _really_ that surprising that I like women’s contact sports?”

Jon laughs. “I suppose not. My turn.” He rolls the dice and moves his piece. “Ah… purple again.”

“Right. ‘What is the translation of the Russian proverb “chemu”…’” Daisy frowns. “I can’t read this.”

“Give it here,” Jon says, taking the card from her. “‘Chemu byt’, togo ne minovat’,’” he reads out. Daisy doesn’t speak Russian, so she can’t know for sure, but… she swears his diction sounds indistinguishable from a native speaker. At the very least, there’s no hesitation in his voice, no false starts, no hint of unfamiliarity with the words. 

“That’s… a weirdly difficult question for Trivial Pursuit,” she says slowly. “How is someone supposed to guess that if they don’t know any Russian?”

Jon just stares at the card for a few moments, brow furrowing, before placing it face-down on the floor and looking back up at Daisy. “Can I pick a different one?”

“You can’t just pick a new card whenever you don’t know the answer.”

“No, I… I do know the answer,” Jon says, shifting uncomfortably. “I just feel like answering it would be cheating.”

“Why? _Are_ you fluent in Russian?”

“Not… exactly.” Daisy stares at Jon insistently until he elaborates. “Sometimes when I read things, the Eye sort of… translates it for me.” He flaps his hands nervously. “It’s – it’s a whole thing.”

“Right. Different question then,” she says, cutting him off before he can start berating himself. “Let’s see… ‘In Egyptian hieroglyphs, the symbol of a decorated eye most commonly represents the eye of which god?’” Daisy frowns. “That’s a little on the nose.”

It’s most likely just a coincidence, but she can’t help the feeling that the Eye is _laughing_ at them. Or maybe the Web. Is it able to just magically manifest cards that didn’t come with the game, just to mess with them? Or maybe it’s Helen, having a laugh. It wouldn’t be the first time she’s played a prank that falls _just_ on the side of cruel.

Daisy is about to say so – _mostly_ but not entirely as a joke – but when she looks up, she sees that Jon has that peculiar look on his face again. He reaches over to the stack of cards and picks one up.

“What are you –”

As he reads it, he shakes his head and tosses the card aside, reaching over to take another one. He glances at it, mutters something under his breath, and discards that one as well. Then he picks up another card. And another. And another.

“You… you alright there, Sims?”

Jon says nothing, just continues reading and discarding cards, increasingly agitated.

“Jon.” Daisy reaches over and places her hand on his wrist. He freezes in place. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

“I Know all the answers,” he says dully, pulling his hand back.

“Okay, so you’re good at trivia. I already know you stay up most nights bingeing Wikipedia articles –”

“No, I – I _Know_ all the answers.”

“Ah.”

“Yeah." He steadfastly avoids eye contact, plucking absently at a loose thread on his sleeve. 

“Alright, out with it,” Daisy says.

“What?”

“You’re moping.”

“I’m not _moping –_ ”

“Yes, you are. I can practically hear your brain going through the five stages of grief over there. So, spill it.”

“I’m supposed to be comforting you, not – not making it about _me!”_ He makes a frustrated noise and buries his fingers in his hair, tugging lightly.

“We don’t get to choose when the hurt comes.” He said much the same to her just the other day.

“Don’t use my words against me,” Jon mutters.

Both of them seize every opportunity to parrot each other like that, _especially_ when one of them is making allowances for the other while refusing to accept the same in return. It's almost become a game at this point.

“No double standards, remember? If it applies to me, it applies to you, too." 

Jon gives an irritated little huff, blowing a stray lock of hair out of his face. “It’s stupid, anyway.”

Daisy stares him down, undeterred. She can wait him out all day if she has to. But she won’t have to. Their earlier standoff in the storage room notwithstanding, Daisy usually wins these contests of will. 

* * *

Predictably enough, Jon only manages to withstand the silence for a few minutes before he crumbles and lets out a heavy sigh. He catches Daisy’s fleeting, victorious grin and shoots her an annoyed scowl, but there’s no real bite behind it.

“I just… I feel like I can’t go ten minutes without being reminded how much I’ve changed.”

“We’ve all changed.”

“You know what I mean,” Jon says sullenly. “It’s just so… invasive, having some – some _thing_ put thoughts into my head. I’ll just suddenly _Know_ the answer to a question I never asked. It's just _there_ where it wasn’t before, interrupting whatever I was thinking before, like – like tripping over a piece of furniture that shouldn’t be there. And when I actively try _not_ to Know things, it’s like opening the floodgates – it’s more likely to slip through the cracks, once the idea is there. Like a…” He gives a short laugh. “Like a compulsion, I suppose. Intrusive thoughts, but with a supernatural origin.”

“Sounds like how the blood feels for me. Sometimes I can listen to the quiet, but other times – like earlier – there’s no drowning it out.” Daisy’s expression darkens. “I let down my guard for a second, hear the first note of it, and then it has its claws sunk into me. And it doesn't like letting go." 

“That’s… that’s it exactly," Jon says. "Seems like you’re better at controlling it, though.”

“I’m not, really. It keeps getting harder and harder.”

“Well, you’re better than me, at least. I couldn’t even ask you how you take your _tea_ without accidentally compelling you. I can recognize on sight when someone has a statement, and it’s everything I can do not to – to gravitate towards them, like a shark to blood.” He grimaces. “I can’t even look people in the eye anymore. I’ve noticed lately that if I lock eyes with someone, they can’t seem to look away, and sometimes I can’t either, and then – then I have to watch as the terror starts to dawn in their eyes. They always sense that there’s something about me that they should fear, even if they can’t put their finger on _why,_ and I have to watch it play out on their faces. It's like the nightmares, but... bleeding over into real life, now. And I’m constantly bombarded with – with facts and figures, almost all of them completely useless, or –”

That familiar sense of dread creeps up on him, and with it comes the pressured speech, a stream-of-consciousness torrent of words that spill from his lips before he can even process what he’s saying. He threads his fingers through his hair again, pulling lightly, trying to ground himself in the sensation.

“I passed someone in the lobby the other day, and suddenly I Knew the cause of death for their Year 9 maths teacher. I can’t be in crowds anymore – too much floods in at once, I can't separate myself from the noise. And – and just yesterday I was making tea, and between one thought and the next, I Knew the _exact_ number of casualties in the Nivelle Offensive – right down to the single digit.” Jon knows he’s rambling, can hear his voice rising in volume – louder, louder, anything to drown out the sound of his own heartbeat thundering in his ears – but he can’t seem to stop himself. He tugs even harder on his hair, just to feel some semblance of control over _something._ “That’s – that’s not even a thought that would occur to me naturally, I’ve never – never wondered about that, military history was never my _thing,_ but – but there it was. I – I can’t even read a _book_ anymore without having the ending spoiled for me before I even finish the first chapter.”

By the time he stops, Jon is nearly panting. Daisy says nothing for a moment, leaving an opening for him to continue before she speaks. 

“That sounds…”

“Yes, stupid, I know,” he mutters darkly.

“I wasn’t going to say ‘stupid.’”

“Well, it is. So much has happened – Prentiss, the Unknowing, the coma, the Buried, the – the existence of potentially world-ending Rituals constantly looming over all of us. Losing Tim, and – and Sasha, and… and Martin being…” Jon leans forward and puts his head in his hands, covering his eyes. “And then I read, and experience, and – and _feed_ on other people’s trauma, and what I finally break down over is some insignificant thing like this.”

Daisy sighs. “It’s not stupid, Jon. This place keeps finding new ways to make us all miserable. Sometimes it gets to be too much. Especially when we aren’t even allowed a good distraction from it all.”

That’s really what it is, isn’t it? The Eye has stolen everything from him – from all of them. They have no respite from its watchful gaze, no sense of safety within these walls, and any ounce of comfort they can scrounge up is promptly wrung out of them. And Jon – Jon doesn’t even have the space to _think,_ to process any of what’s happened to him – not when his own train of thought can be so unceremoniously derailed without warning, replaced with the details of some hapless stranger’s darkest secret. Even his dreams aren’t his own.

He keeps trying to listen to the quiet, but he can’t find it in all the _noise._

Before he went into the coffin, it was only the Eye keeping the Lonely from claiming him for itself – and yet, he was still never alone in his own mind. It was jarring, feeling isolated and watched and possessed all at the same time. He wanted companionship, yes, but he also was desperate for just a moment to himself – just one inch of himself that belonged to _him_ and _him alone_. He has Daisy, now, and she keeps some of his loneliness at bay, but it doesn’t dispel that fundamental sense of ostracism he feels when interacting with any of the others, and it doesn’t change the fact that he hasn’t been his own person in a very, _very_ long time – and probably never will be again.

He doesn’t know how long he’s been lost in thought, but he snaps out of it when Daisy says, in a near whisper, as if it's meant as much for herself as it is for Jon: “Sometimes it’s the little things that wear you down the most.”

She isn’t _wrong._ Jon distinctly remembers what finals week during uni was always like for him. He’d pull back-to-back all-nighters, let that ever-present fear of failure bog him down, bottle up all the stress until the pressure became too much and he would finally, inevitably break down. It was always some little thing that would finally set him off: someone playing music too loudly outside, a car alarm startling him into heart palpitations, not being able to find a particular page of notes in the constant clutter that was his desk. There’s always been some seemingly insignificant last straw that leaves him crying over spilled milk, figuratively speaking. (And, on one occasion, literally: Georgie had walked into the kitchen one time to find him sitting on the floor just _staring_ at an upended milk carton and fighting back tears.)

Apparently that hasn't changed much in the intervening years. 

“Yes, well,” he says, “I don’t see you breaking down over every little thing.”

“Hmm.” Daisy stretches her leg across the gap between them and nudges him with her foot. “Want to know why I was hiding in the storage room?”

“Only if you want to tell me," Jon says carefully, wary of inadvertent compulsion. 

“I fell in the tunnels," Daisy begins. "I had been doing fine down there, but then out of nowhere the walls felt too close together, and when I tried to run, I tripped. Scraped my hands on the floor when I fell. When I looked at them, there was dirt on them, and that made me think of the coffin. And there was blood – just the smallest amount, but it was enough to make me think of…" She gives a humorless chuckle. "Well, it’s a cliché, but it made me think of all the blood on my hands.”

“And then you felt guilty,” Jon says slowly, putting the pieces together, “so you decided to punish yourself by simulating the Buried and cramming yourself into it.”

She gives a little half-shrug. It’s as good as a confirmation.

“We… we’re a mess, aren’t we?” Jon says with a rueful smile.

“Yeah. But at least we have that in common.” Daisy gives Jon a purposeful glance. “Better than dealing with it alone.”

It takes a moment, but Jon nods. 

“Well then,” Daisy announces, clapping her hands on her knees. “I’m going to go out back and burn this.”

“Wait – what?” Jon watches, completely bewildered, as Daisy folds up the game board and starts shoving cards haphazardly back into the box. “Daisy, you don’t have to –” His hands flutter anxiously for a few moments before he throws them up in exasperation and sighs. “Why is everyone’s first plan always _arson?”_

“I get to destroy something that hurt someone I care about,” she says, matter-of-fact, smashing the lid onto the box, “and no one gets harmed in the process.”

“It’s not the _game’s_ fault that I –”

“Yeah, well. I can’t exactly set _Elias_ on fire," Daisy interrupts, punctuating Elias' name with a low snarl. “The next best thing is a reminder of what he’s done.”

With that, she stands, tucking the box under her arm.

“I –”

“When I get back we can play Candy Land."

“ _Candy Land?”_ Jon laughs, bemused. “ _Really_ , Daisy?”

“What, are there any statements on – on _evil sugar_ that I should know about?”

She means it mostly as a joke, he knows, but there’s still the hint of a genuine question there. Given everything they’ve both seen, malicious, sentient candy would just be one more impossible horror on the pile.

Jon tries not to think too hard on which of Smirke’s Fourteen would be its domain.

“No, uh –” Jon laughs again, not quite able to disguise the nervous uncertainty that creeps in. “No confectionary horrors, thank god. So far. As far as I know, anyway.” He wrinkles his nose. “Just – just meat.”

“Good. Now go make some more tea. I’ll meet you back here.”

“ _Fine,_ ” he sighs. “Just don’t – don’t set the dumpster on fire while you’re out there? Last thing we need is for someone to call emergency services. They would send Sectioned officers over as soon as they saw the Institute on caller ID.”

“Right, right.” Daisy starts off down the hall. “Extra sugar in my tea, Sims,” she calls over her shoulder.

“I know how you take your tea by now, Daisy!” he shouts after her, smiling as her laughter echoes back to him. 

**Author's Note:**

> \- The "you never could tolerate an unsolved mystery" Elias quote is from [one of my other fics](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24033448).
> 
> \- The Russian is a transliteration Чему́ быть, того́ не минова́ть. It loosely translates to "you cannot avoid that which is fated to happen"/"what will be will be" (or, that's the gist, anyway).  
> Baaaaasically I needed to manufacture some kind of conceit to have Jon translate a thing, and I figured I may as well make it something that would feel just a _little_ too personalized for him specifically. (And also handwave how out of place that question would be in your standard Trivial Pursuit deck by saying 'the Web or Helen probably did it just to bully Jon, idk, that seems pretty on-brand for them'.)  
> Anyway, I checked the translation and transliteration with a friend of mine who knows Russian; hopefully I got it right, but if not, feel free to let me know. c: 
> 
> \- Comments greatly appreciated!!
> 
> \- I'm also on Tumblr at [bubonickitten](https://bubonickitten.tumblr.com/)!


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